Celebrating God's Work at St. Joseph

Good morning.

Today we celebrate our Known by Name weekend, which is part of our vision to build up our community here.

I know at the beginning of Mass we already asked the question of somebody, how can I pray for you?

But at this moment, I'd like to invite us to ask one other question of maybe the same person that we met or another person, and the question is this How long have you been here at St.

Joseph?

And what inspires you to come?

What do you like about St.

Joseph?

If you don't like anything, you can say that.

That's okay too.

But let's take a moment to ask that question just to somebody new.

How long have you been here at St.

Joseph?

What do you like about St.

Joseph?

What inspires you to come?

Let's take a moment to do that right now.

See if we can bring it back little by little.

Okay.

So how many people here have been here at least for 30 years?

Anybody 30 years here at Saint Joseph?

Any 30-year people?

Any 40-year people here?

40 years at St.

Joseph?

Keep them, keep them raised.

40 years?

How about 50 years?

Anybody 50 years at St.

Joseph?

Do I dare keep going?

50?

How about, okay.

How many of you have been here?

60 years?

Anyone 60?

60 years back there?

Anybody?

Sixty years there?

Sixty years there?

Sixty years.

Whoa.

Um more than sixty years?

Like how many?

Like how many years?

Mostly here.

Wow, okay, wow, amazing.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Wow, that's great.

All right.

I didn't quite hear that.

Oh my goodness, you're mad.

Yeah.

Since nineteen sixty-five.

Wow, okay, beautiful.

Oh yeah, go for it.

Yeah, go for it.

Yeah, shout it out.

Nineteen sixty one.

Sixty-five years.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think you win.

I like what she says.

She says, You were not born yet, Father.

Yes.

Good, wonderful.

Well, it sounds like you just had a good conversation about, you know, how many years you've been here and what you liked and stuff like that.

So thank you for participating in that.

Before I share some words of the homily, I would like to start off by sharing a word of gratitude.

Because as many of you know, last week, last Sunday, I was officially installed as pastor of St.

Joseph Church.

Very beautiful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just been overwhelmed by the amount of love and support that I receive and just so grateful for each and every single one of you.

I wanted to share just a few pictures from the celebration so you can see what the celebration was like.

The first picture I want to share with you is the priest that uh that was that was overwhelming in itself.

I mean, just just that was like, wow, I said to the priest, I can't believe the turnout.

Somebody uh mentioned to me afterwards, Father, like half the diocese was here.

Like, who celebrated the evening masses in the other parishes, you know?

Um, so that was just so amazing to all the priests.

Um the the next one is the greeters, our uh sunshine greeters with the um umbrellas.

There was like 40 of them welcoming people from the doors of their cars to the doors of the church, so that was just so amazing.

Uh, the next one is the picture of the church during the celebration.

It was a it was a standing room church, and then we had a packed uh hall as well.

It was just like wow, there's there's so many uh people that came from that again, just overwhelming.

And then last one is just like three guys.

Do you know that guy in the middle?

I don't know about him.

He looks kind of suspect to me.

I don't know.

Um, so anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who offered their prayers, their love, their support, who gave a gift or who served in any way, shape, or form.

So just thank you to all of you.

I I maybe an applause to those who have given, who celebrated, who who donated, who served.

So thank you to all of you who helped for that celebration.

Thank you.

Now, I I also have to offer a small apology for some some people who came to the celebration but weren't able to find parking.

We did have a big, so a few people did share with me, Father.

I came, but there's no parking here, and I couldn't find parking over at Valencia or on the street or even at Holy Cross Melkite Church.

And so um, if you were one of those who who couldn't find parking that evening, I'm truly sorry that you weren't able to find space.

Uh the good news is that the mass was live streamed and it's on YouTube to be able to be watched, and so it was a beautiful celebration.

If you get a chance, I'd like to recommend that.

Um, and so I just want to say it's an honor and a privilege for me to be your pastor for the next six years, and I really look forward to what God has in store for our community in the next six years.

So, thank you very much again for your love and for your support for this celebration.

Uh, for the homie today, I'd just like to say uh one brief point about each of our scripture readings today and how it connects to that celebration and our daily life.

So, from our first reading from the prophet Isaiah, we heard him say, All who are thirsty, come to the, do you remember, come to the water.

All you who are hungry, receive grain and eat those without money and without cost, drink wine and milk.

Uh, Bishop Timothy Fryer, who gave the homily this past Sunday for the installation mass, he said to the community, you know, I don't know of any parish who, when they first started the Alpha program, had as many people as this parish had.

Do you guys remember when we first started Alpha, how many people came to our first Alpha?

We had over 300 people come to our first experience of Alpha.

And after our second course of Alpha, we have now close to around 500 people who have experienced our Alpha course.

And we're starting it again in September.

So if you haven't had a chance to experience what Alpha is like, by the way, I think we have our inserts here somewhere that has alpha on it.

Look at me trying to reach over the pews here.

Um, oh, there it is.

Thank you.

Yeah, if you haven't had a chance to experience alpha, we'd love to invite you to come and experience Alpha.

It's been amazing for uh those uh who have come.

Now, for those of you who have experienced alpha before, you know that we provide a big feast every single week, right?

For 11 weeks, and even our last, uh our second session of Alpha, we even offered wine, a little bit of vino, as they say in uh Espanyol.

And you know what?

We offer it for free.

I mean, we it it costs a lot of money to run alpha, it's like$10,000 per course to be able to run an alpha course, but we do it to try to live out what the prophet Isaiah was saying, you know.

All who are thirsty, come to the water.

You who have no money, come receive grain and eat.

This is our way of giving back to the community, helping us to experience Christ and community here at St.

Joseph.

Of course, we have great donors as well.

So if you haven't had a chance to experience Alpha, please give it a shot.

Now, our second reading from Paul to the Romans, he said, Nothing can separate us from what?

The love of Christ.

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

Bishop Tim also in his homily on Sunday, he said, Um, you know, in the past two years that uh I visited this St.

Joseph community, every October we take a mass count of all the attendants and all of our parishes.

And he said, Over the past two years here at St.

Joseph's Church, our the mass attendance here has gone up by 20%.

That's what he said, 20% at St.

Joseph.

And he said, that's 400 people who two years ago were not coming here to St.

Joseph, who are here today, being nourished by the Word of God, being nourished by the sacraments, but finding community and friendship and connection here.

Maybe as I'm sharing this, you're sitting in the pew and you're like, Father, I'm one of those 400 that are here now that I wasn't here two years ago and have experienced Christ and community here.

What can separate us from the love of Christ?

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

And he's shown that here in our community and allowing us to grow and expand year by year.

Finally, in our last reading, Jesus feed does the miracle of the feeding of how many again?

Five thousand, what?

Five thousand men, not counting women and children.

So let's do some quick math here.

Let's say how many people that was.

20,000.

20,000?

Let's just say 20,000, right?

The multiple the multiplication of the bread and the fishes.

You know, this past Sunday when we celebrated the installation mass, uh, somebody uh shared with me, actually, she's seated over here somewhere.

Um, she said, Father, thank you for allowing us to participate in what felt like the feeding of the 5,000.

Because that's what it felt like.

Do you know how many people we welcomed that evening?

We welcomed around 1,500 people this past Sunday.

And and by some miracle, we were able to feed that many people.

And not only were we able to feed that many people, but we had food left over for 1,500 people.

Like the miracle that we heard about in the gospel, it's like being played out in real life here today.

Like that's how much God loves us, that's how much God loves you, that's how much God loves me, that's how much God loves our community.

The feeding of the 5,000 or here in St.

Joseph's, the feeding of the 1,500, let's say.

The feeding of the 1500.

Okay, to conclude.

For anybody, if you're you're hungrying, you're thirsting, come to the water, like the prophet Isaiah says.

Paul says to the Romans, what can separate us from the love of Christ?

Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

Nothing can separate us from Jesus' love for you.

And finally, just as Jesus fed the 5,000 of the gospel, that's what he wants to do for us to feed our hearts, our minds, our souls, and our spirits.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.